诺贝尔奖得主高锟的获奖演说 【大公报讯】综合外电斯德哥尔摩2009年12月8日消息：身在瑞典的今届诺 贝尔物理学奖得主高锟，昨日下午由夫人黄美芸在斯德哥尔摩大学代为发表演讲。 历时两小时的演讲会，回顾了光纤理论的基础和对世界的影响，展示了高锟一流 科学家对科研的创见、自信与坚持。 演辞开首黄美芸先自我介绍，并对丈夫未能亲自演讲表示歉意。黄美芸在演 说中回忆高锟在众人质疑声音中坚持自己的信念，最后使光纤通信得到世人认可 的点点滴滴。 醉心研究归家迟 黄美芸回忆起四十多年前，高锟总是因为醉心于光纤研究而很晚回家，以至 年幼的子女要在餐桌前等爸爸回来才能开饭。黄美芸每次都很生气，依稀还记得 高锟总是说：别生气，我们现在做的是非常振奋人心的事情，有一天它会震惊 世界的。黄美芸当时略带讽刺地说：是吗？那你会因此获得诺贝尔奖吗？ 幽默而心酸的回忆，引发台下笑声，一直坐在台下凝神聆听夫人演讲的高锟 亦被逗得咧嘴而笑。黄美芸表示，回望过往才发现，高锟是对的，他的成果给 通信界带来了一场惊天动地的革命。 黄美芸娓娓道出一九六○年代高锟研发光纤的时代背景及理论简介，谈及当 年物理学界已有光通讯的理论，不过无法制造出可长距离传输光信息的物料。当 时高锟认定传送物料才是关键，便埋首研究制作光纤的方法，终在一九六六年发 表光通讯理论，指人类可制作出极高纯度的玻璃纤维，取代传统铜线传送极高容 量资料。演辞讲述一九七○年代科学界如何利用高锟的理论，并由康宁玻璃工厂 以石英制造出世界第一条光纤，自此光纤技术一日千里，带来世界通讯革命。 历年诺贝尔奖得奖者皆在领奖前夕，在瑞典首都发表得奖演讲，综述生平最 重要的研究成就和学术思想。由于患阿兹海默症（老人痴呆症一种）的高锟发言 有困难，今次演讲由太太黄美芸代为以英语发表。 据了解，高锟夫妇于十月获通知得奖后，即联络中大寻求协助，其中与高锟 相识多年的中大副校长兼物理学家杨纲凯，和另外两名在一九九○年代由高锟邀 请到中大的工程学传人，现任中大讯息工程学系教授张国伟和陈亮光，即义 不容辞组成专家小组，协助完成这篇学术性甚浓的演讲。 亘古砂石递捷音 演辞由黄美芸亲自点题为亘古砂石递捷音（Sand from centuries past: Send future voices fast），以英文写成。（编者按：光纤必须用高度纯净的 二氧化硅来做，否则光（以及它所负载的声音）就会受散射而不能够在里面传播 很远，而最普通的砂子正是二氧化硅。） 瑞典皇家科学院常任秘书贡诺．厄奎斯特在记者招待会上说，高锟在有关 光在纤维中的传输以用于光学通信方面取得了突破性成就，他将获得今年物理 学奖一半的奖金，共五百万瑞典克朗（约合七十万美元）；博伊尔和史密斯发明 了半导体成像器件──电荷耦合器件（CCD）图像感测器，将分享今年物理学奖 另一半奖金。 下面是英文演讲内容（来自信报网）： Sand from centuries past;Send future voices fast. A Nobel Lecture organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and The Prize Committee in Physics delivered by Mrs Gwen MW Kao on behalf of Prof Charles K Kao Nobel Laureate in Physics 2009 8 December 2009 Aula Magna Stockholm University 1. Introduction It is sad that my husband, Professor Charles Kao, is unable to give this lecture to you himself. As the person closest to him, I stand before you to honour him and to speak for him. He is very very proud of his achievements for which the Nobel Foundation honours him. As are we all! In the 43 years since his seminal paper of 1966 that gave birth to the ubiquitous glass fiber cables of today, the world of telephony has changed vastly. It is due to Professor Kaos persistence in the face of skepticism that this revolution has occurred. In the 1970s the pre-production stage moved to ITT Corp Roanoke VA, USA. Whilst Charles worked there, he received two letters. One contained a threatening message accusing him of releasing an evil genie from its bottle; the other, from a farmer in China, asked for a means to allow him to pass a message to his distant wife to bring his lunch. Both letter writers saw a future that has since become past history. In the 1960s, our children were small. Charles often came home later than normal dinner was waiting as were the children. I got very annoyed when this happened day after day. His words,maybe not exactly remembered, were Please dont be so mad. It is very exciting what we are doing; it will shake the world one day! I was sarcastic, Really, so you will get the Nobel Prize, wont you! He was right it has revolutionized telecommunications. 2. The early days In 1960, Charles joined Standard Telecommunications Laboratories Ltd. (STL), a subsidiary of ITT Corp in the UK, after having worked as a graduate engineer at Standard Telephones and Cables in Woolwich for some time. Much of the work at STL was devoted to improving the capabilities of the existing communication infrastructure with a focus on the use of millimeter wave transmission systems. Millimeter waves at 35 to 70 GHz could have a much higher transmission capacity. But the waters were uncharted and the challenges enormous, since radio waves at such frequencies could not be beamed over long distances due to beam divergence and atmospheric absorption. The waves had to be guided by a waveguide. And in the 1950s, RD work on low loss circular waveguides HE-11 mode was started. A trial system was deployed in the 1960s. Huge sums were invested, and more were planned, to move this system into the pre-production stage. Public expectation for new telecommunication services such as the video phone had heightened. Charles joined the long-haul waveguide group led by Dr Karbowiak at STL. He was excited to see an actual circular waveguide. He was assigned to look for new transmission methods for microwave and optical transmission. He used both ray optics and wave theory to gain a better understanding of waveguide problems then a novel idea. Later, his boss encouraged him to pursue a doctorate while working at STL. So Charles registered at University College London and completed the dissertation Quasi-Optical Waveguides in two years. The invention of the laser in 1959 gave the telecom community a great dose of optimism that optical communication could be just around the corner. The coherent light was to be the new information carrier with capacity a hundred thousand times higher than point-to-point microwaves based on the simple comparison of frequencies: 300 terahertz for light versus 3 gigahertz for microwaves. The race between circular microwave waveguides and optical communication was on, with the odds heavily in favour of the former. In 1960, optical lasers were in their infancy, demonstrated at only a few research laboratories, and performing much below the needed specs. Optical systems seemed a non-starter. But Charles still thought the laser had potential. He said to himself: How can we dismiss the laser so readily? Optical communication is too good to be left on the theoretical shelf. He asked himself the obvious questions: 1. Is the ruby laser a suitable source for optical communication? 2. What material has sufficiently high transparency at such wavelengths? At that time only two groups in the world were starting to look at the transmission aspect of optical communication, while several other groups were working on solid state and semiconductor lasers. Lasers emit coherent radiation at optical frequencies, but using such radiation for communication appeared to be very difficult, if not impossible. For optical communication to fulfill its promises, many serious problems remained to be solved. 3. The key discovery In 1963 Charles was already involved in free space propagation experiments: the rapid progress of semiconductor and laser technology had opened up a broader scope to explore optical communication realistically. With a helium-neon laser beam directed to a spot some distance away, the STL team quickly discovered that distant laser light flickered. The beam danced around several beam diameters because of atmospheric fluctuations. The team also tried to repeat experiments done by other research laboratories around the world. For example, they set up con-focal lens experiments similar to those at Bell Labs: a series of convex lenses were lined up at intervals equal to the focal length. But even at the dead of night when the air was still and even with refocusing every 100 meters, the beam refused to stay within the lens aperture. Bell Labs experiments using gas lenses were abandoned due to the difficulty of providing satisfactory insulation while maintaining the profiles of the gas lenses. These experiments were struggles in desperation, to control light travelling over long distances. At STL the thinking shifted towards dielectric waveguides. Dielectric means a non-conductor of electricity; a dielectric waveguide is a waveguide consisting of a dielectric cylinder surrounded by air. Dr Karbowiak suggested Charles and three others to work on his idea of a thin film waveguide. But thin film waveguides failed: the confinement was not strong enough and light would escape as it negotiates a bend. When Dr Karbowiak decided to emigrate to Australia, Charles took over as the project leader and he then recommended that the team should investigate the loss mechanism of dielectric materials for optical fibers. A small group worked on methods for measuring material loss of low-loss transparent materials. George Hockham joined him to work on the characteristics of dielectric waveguides. With his interest in waveguide theory, he focused on the tolerance requirements for an optical fiber waveguide; in particular, the dimensional tolerance and joint losses. They proceeded to systematically study the physical and waveguide requirements on glass fibers. In addition, Charles was also pushing his colleagues in the laser group to work towards a semiconductor laser in the near infrared, with emission characteristics matching the diameter of a single-mode fiber. Single mode fiber is optical fiber that is designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier. The laser had to be made durable, and to work at room temperatures without liquid nitrogen cooling. So there were many obstacles. But in the early 1960s, esoteric research was tolerated so long as it was not too costly. Over the next two years, the team worked towards the goals. They were all novices in the physics and chemistry of materials and in tackling new electromagnetic wave problems. But they made very credible progress in considered steps. They searched the literature, talked to experts, and collected material samples from various glass and polymer companies. They also worked on the theories, and developed measurement techniques to carry out a host of experiments. They developed an instrument to measure the spectral loss of very low-loss material, as well as one for scaled simulation experiments to measure fiber loss due to mechanical imperfections. Charles zeroed in on glass as a possible transparent material. Glass is made from silica sand from centuries past that is plentiful and cheap. The optical loss of transparent material is due to three mechanisms: (a) intrinsic absorption, (b)extrinsic absorption, and (c) Rayleigh scattering. The intrinsic loss is caused by the infrared absorption of the material structure itself, which determines the wavelength of the transparency regions. The extrinsic loss is due to impurity ions left in the material and the Rayleigh loss is due to the scattering of photons by the structural non-uniformity of the material. For most practical applications such as windows, the transparency of glass was entirely adequate, and no one had studied absorption down to such levels. After talking with many people, Charles eventually formed the following conclusions. 1. Impurities, particularly transition elements such as iron, copper, and manganese, have to be reduced to parts per million or even parts per billion. However, can impurity concentrations be reduced to such low levels? 2. High temperature glasses are frozen rapidly and therefore are more homogeneous, leading to a lower scattering loss. The ongoing microwave simulation experiments were also completed. The characteristics of the dielectric waveguide were fully defined in terms of its modes, its dimensional tolerance both for end-to-end mismatch and for its diameter fluctuation along the fiber lengths. Both the theory and the simulated experiments supported the approach. They wrote the paper entitled, Dielectric-Fibre Surface Waveguides for Optical Frequencies and submitted it to the Proceedings of Institute of Electrical Engineers. After the usual review and revision, it appeared in July 1966 the date now regarded as the birthday of optical fiber communication. 4. The paper The paper started with a brief discussion of the mode properties in a fiber of circular cross section. The paper then quickly zeroed in on the material aspects, which were recognized to be the major stumbling block. At the time, the most transparent glass had a loss of 200 dB/km, which would limit transmission to about a few meters this is very obvious to anyone who has ever peered through a thick piece of glass. Nothing can be seen. But the paper pointed out that the intrinsic loss due to scattering could be as low as 1 dB/km,which would have allowed propagation over practical distances. The culprit is the impurities: mainly ferrous and ferric ions at these wavelengths. Quoting from the paper: It is foreseeable that glasses with a bulk loss of about 20 dB/km at around 0.6 micron will be obtained, as the iron-impurity concentration may be reduced to 1 part per million. In layman terms, if one has a sufficiently clean type of glass, one should be able to see through a slab as thick as several hundred meters. That key insight opened up the field of optical communications. The paper considered many other issues: ? The loss can be reduced if the mode is chosen so that most of the energy is actually outside the fiber. ? The fiber should be surrounded by a cladding of lower index (which became the standard technology). ? The loss of energy due to bends in the fiber is negligible for bends larger than 1 mm. ? The losses due to non-uniform cross sections were estimated. ? The properties of a single-mode fiber (now a key technology especially for long distance and high data rate transmission) were analyzed. It was explained how dispersion limits bandwidth; an example was worked out for a 10 km route a very bold scenario in 1966. It may be appropriate to quote from the Conclusion of this paper: The realization of a successful fiber waveguide depends, at present, on the availability of suitable low-loss dielectric material. The crucial material problem appears to be one which is difficult but not impossible to solve. Certainly, the required loss figure of around 20 dB/km is much higher than the lower limit of loss figure imposed by fundamental mechanisms. Basically all of the predictions pointed accurately to the paths of developments, and we now have 1/100 of the loss and 10,000 times the bandwidth then forecast the evolutionary proposal in the 1966 paper was in hindsight too conservative. 5. Convincing the world The substance of the paper was presented by Dr Kao at an IEE meeting in February 1966. Most of the world did not take notice except for the British Post Office (BPO) and the UK Ministry of Defense, who immediately launched major research programs. By the end of 1966, three groups in the UK were studying the various issues involved: Kao himself at STL; Roberts at BPO; Gambling at Southampton in collaboration with Williams at the Ministry of Defense Laboratory. In the next few years, Dr Kao traveled the globe to push his idea: to Japan, where enduring friendships were made dating from those early days; to research labs in Germany, in the Netherlands and elsewhere to spread his news. He said that until more and more jumped on the bandwagon, the use of glass fibers would not take off. He had tremendous conviction in the face of widespread skepticism. The global telephony industry is huge, too large to be changed by a single person or even a single country, but he was persistent and his enthusiasm was contagious, and slowly he converted others to be believers. The experts at first proclaimed that the materials were the most severe of the intrinsic insurmountable problems. Gambling wrote that British Telecom had been somewhat scathingabout the proposal earlier, and Bell Labs, who could easily have led the field, simply failed to take notice until the proven technology was pointed out to them. Dr Kao visited many glass manufacturers to persuade them to produce the clear glass required. He got a response from Corning, where Maurer led the first group that later produced the glass rods and developed the techniques to make the glass fibers to the required specifications. Meanwhile, Dr Kao continued to pour energy into proving the feasibility of glass fibers as the medium for long-haul optical transmission. They faced a number of formidable challenges. The first was the measurement techniques for low-loss samples that were obtainable only in lengths of around 20 cm. The problem of assuring surface perfection was also ormidable. Another problem is end surface reflection loss, caused by the polishing process. They faced a measurement impasse that demanded the detection of a loss difference between two samples of less than 0.1%, when the total loss of the entire 20 cm sample is only 0.1%. An inexact measurement would be meaningless. In 1968 and 1969, Dr Kao and his colleagues Davies, Jones and Wright at STL published a series of papers on the attenuation measurements of glass that addressed the above problems. At that time, the measuring instruments called spectrophotometers had a rather limited sensitivity in the range of 43 dB/km. The measurement was very difficult: even a minute contamination could have caused a loss comparable to the attenuation itself, while surface effects could easily be ten times worse. Dr Kao and the team assembled a homemade single-beam spectrophotometer that achieved a sensitivity of 21.7 dB/km. Later improvements with a double-beam spectrophotometer yielded a sensitivity down to 4.3 dB/km. The reflection effect was measured with a homemade ellipsometer. To make it, they used fused quartz samples made by plasma deposition, in which the high temperature evaporated the impurity ions. With the sensitive instrument, the attenuation of a number of glass samples was measured and, eureka, the Infrasil sample from Schott Glass showed an attenuation as low as 5 dB/km at a window around 0.85 micron at last proving that the removal of impurity would lower the absorption loss to useful levels. This was really exciting because the low-loss region is right at the gallium-arsenide laser emission band. The measurements clearly pointed the way to optical communication compact gallium-arsenide semiconductor lasers as the source, low-cost cladded glass fibers as the transmission medium, and silicon or germanium semiconductors for detection. The dream no longer seemed remote. These measurements apparently turned the sentiments of the research community around. The race to develop the first low-loss glass fiber waveguide was on. In 1967, at Corning, Maurers chemist colleague Schultz helped to purify the glass. In 1968, his colleagues Keck and Zimar helped to draw the fibers. By 1970, Corning had produced a fiber waveguide with a loss of 17 dB/km at 0.633 micron using a titanium-diffused core with silica cladding, using the Outside Vapor Deposition (OVD) method. Two years later, they reduced the loss to 4 dB/km for a multimode fiber by replacing the titanium-doped core with a germanium-doped core. Bell Labs finally got on the bandwagon in 1969 and created a programme in optical fiber research after having been skeptical for years. Their work on hollow light pipes was finally stopped in 1972. Their millimeter wave research programme was wound down and eventually abandoned in 1975. It was during this time of constant flying out to other places that this cartoon joke hit home:Children, the man you see at the breakfast table today is your father! We saw him for a few days and off he went again. Sometimes he flew off for the day for meetings at ITT Corp headquarters in New York. I would forget he had not left to go to the office and would phone his secretary to remind Charles to pick up milk or something on his way home. His secretary was very amused:Mrs Kao, dont you know your husband is in New York today! 6. Impact on the world Since the deployment of the first-generation, 45-megabit-per-second fiber-optic communication system in 1976, the transmission capacity in a single fiber has rapidly increased a million fold to tens of terabits per second. Data can be carried over millions of km of fibers without going through repeaters, thanks to the invention of the optical fiber amplifier and wavelength division multiplexing. So that is how the industry grew and grew. The world has been totally transformed because of optical fiber communication. The telephone system has been overhauled and international long distance calls have become easily affordable. Brand new mega-industries in fiber optics including cable manufacturing and equipment, optical devices, network system and equipment have been created. Hundreds of millions of kilometers of glass fiber cables have been laid, in the ground and in the ocean, creating an intricate web of connectivity that is the foundation of the world-wide web. The Internet is now more pervasive than the telephone used to be. We browse, we skype, we blog, we go onto you-tube, we shop, we socialize on-line. The information revolution that started in the 1990s could not have happened without optical fibers. Over the last few years fibers are being laid all the way to our homes. All-optical networks that are environmentally green are contemplated. The revolution in optical fiber communication has not ended it might still just be at the beginning. 7. Conclusion The world-wide communication network based on optical fibers has truly shrunk the world and brought human beings closer together. I hardly need to cite technical figures to drive this point home. The news of the Nobel Prize reached us in the middle of the night at 3 am in California, through a telephone call from Stockholm (then in their morning) no doubt carried on optical fibers; congratulations came literally minutes later from friends in Asia (for whom it was evening), again through messages carried on optical fibers. Too much information is not always a good thing: we had to take the phone off the hook that night in order to get some sleep! Optical communication is by now not just a technical advance, but has also caused major changes in society. The next generation will learn and grow up differently; people will relate to one another in different ways. Manufacturing of all the bits and pieces of a single product can now take place over a dozen locations around the world, providing huge opportunities for people especially in developing countries. The wide accessibility of information has obviously led to more equality and wider participation in public affairs. Many words, indeed many books have been written about the information society, and I do not wish to add to them here except to say that it is beyond the dreams of the first serious concept of optical communication in 1966, when even 1 GHz was only a hope. In conclusion, Charles and I want to thank the Professors at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, namely: Professor Young, Professor Wong, Professor Cheung and Professor Chen for their support in compiling this lecture for us. Charles would like to thank ITT Corp where he developed his career for 30 years and all those who climbed on to the bandwagon with him in the early days, as without the legions of believers the industry would not have evolved as it did. Charles Kao planted the seed; Bob Maurer watered it and John MacChesney grew its roots. (XYS20091210)
【大公報訊】綜合外電斯德哥爾摩2009年12月8日消息：身在瑞典的今屆諾貝爾物理學獎得主高錕，昨日下午由夫人黃美芸在斯德哥爾摩大學代為發表演講。歷時兩小時的演講會，回顧了光纖理論的基礎和對世界的影響，展示了高錕一流科學家對科研的創見、自信與堅持。 演辭開首黃美芸先自我介紹，並對丈夫未能親自演講表示歉意。黃美芸在演說中回憶高錕在眾人質疑聲音中堅持自己的信念，最後使光纖通信得到世人認可的點點滴滴。 醉心研究歸家遲 黃美芸回憶起四十多年前，高錕總是因為醉心於光纖研究而很晚回家，以至年幼的子女要在餐桌前等爸爸回來才能開飯。黃美芸每次都很生氣，依稀還記得高錕總是說：「別生氣，我們現在做的是非常振奮人心的事情，有一天它會震驚世界的。」黃美芸當時略帶諷刺地說：「是嗎？那你會因此獲得諾貝爾獎嗎？」 幽默而心酸的回憶，引發台下笑聲，一直坐在台下凝神聆聽夫人演講的高錕亦被逗得咧嘴而笑。黃美芸表示，回望過往才發現，高錕是對的，「他的成果給通信界帶來了一場驚天動地的革命。」 黃美芸娓娓道出一九六○年代高錕研發光纖的時代背景及理論簡介，談及當年物理學界已有光通訊的理論，不過無法製造出可長距離傳輸光信息的物料。當時高錕認定傳送物料才是關鍵，便埋首研究製作光纖的方法，終在一九六六年發表光通訊理論，指人類可製作出極高純度的玻璃纖維，取代傳統銅線傳送極高容量資料。演辭講述一九七○年代科學界如何利用高錕的理論，並由康寧玻璃工廠以石英製造出世界第一條光纖，自此「光纖」技術一日千里，帶來世界通訊革命。 歷年諾貝爾獎得獎者皆在領獎前夕，在瑞典首都發表得獎演講，綜述生平最重要的研究成就和學術思想。由於患阿茲海默症（老人癡呆症一種）的高錕發言有困難，今次演講由太太黃美芸代為以英語發表。 據了解，高錕夫婦於十月獲通知得獎後，即聯絡中大尋求協助，其中與高錕相識多年的中大副校長兼物理學家楊綱凱，和另外兩名在一九九○年代由高錕邀請到中大的工程學「傳人」，現任中大訊息工程學系教授張國偉和陳亮光，即義不容辭組成專家小組，協助完成這篇學術性甚濃的演講。 亘古砂石遞捷音 演辭由黃美芸親自點題為「亘古砂石遞捷音」（Sand from centuries past: Send future voices fast），以英文寫成。（編者按：光纖必須用高度純淨的二氧化硅來做，否則光（以及它所負載的聲音）就會受散射而不能夠在裡面傳播很遠，而最普通的砂子正是二氧化硅。） 瑞典皇家科學院常任秘書貢諾．厄奎斯特在記者招待會上說，高錕在「有關光在纖維中的傳輸以用於光學通信方面」取得了突破性成就，他將獲得今年物理學獎一半的獎金，共五百萬瑞典克朗（約合七十萬美元）；博伊爾和史密斯發明了半導體成像器件──電荷耦合器件（CCD）圖像感測器，將分享今年物理學獎另一半獎金。 下面是英文演讲内容（来自信报网）： Sand from centuries past;Send future voices fast. A Nobel Lecture organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and The Prize Committee in Physics delivered by Mrs Gwen MW Kao on behalf of Prof Charles K Kao Nobel Laureate in Physics 2009 8 December 2009 Aula Magna Stockholm University 1. Introduction It is sad that my husband, Professor Charles Kao, is unable to give this lecture to you himself. As the person closest to him, I stand before you to honour him and to speak for him. He is very very proud of his achievements for which the Nobel Foundation honours him. As are we all! In the 43 years since his seminal paper of 1966 that gave birth to the ubiquitous glass fiber cables of today, the world of telephony has changed vastly. It is due to Professor Kaos persistence in the face of skepticism that this revolution has occurred. In the 1970s the pre-production stage moved to ITT Corp Roanoke VA, USA. Whilst Charles worked there, he received two letters. One contained a threatening message accusing him of releasing an evil genie from its bottle; the other, from a farmer in China, asked for a means to allow him to pass a message to his distant wife to bring his lunch. Both letter writers saw a future that has since become past history. In the 1960s, our children were small. Charles often came home later than normal dinner was waiting as were the children. I got very annoyed when this happened day after day. His words,maybe not exactly remembered, were Please dont be so mad. It is very exciting what we are doing; it will shake the world one day! I was sarcastic, Really, so you will get the Nobel Prize, wont you! He was right it has revolutionized telecommunications. 2. The early days In 1960, Charles joined Standard Telecommunications Laboratories Ltd. (STL), a subsidiary of ITT Corp in the UK, after having worked as a graduate engineer at Standard Telephones and Cables in Woolwich for some time. Much of the work at STL was devoted to improving the capabilities of the existing communication infrastructure with a focus on the use of millimeter wave transmission systems. Millimeter waves at 35 to 70 GHz could have a much higher transmission capacity. But the waters were uncharted and the challenges enormous, since radio waves at such frequencies could not be beamed over long distances due to beam divergence and atmospheric absorption. The waves had to be guided by a waveguide. And in the 1950s, RD work on low loss circular waveguides HE-11 mode was started. A trial system was deployed in the 1960s. Huge sums were invested, and more were planned, to move this system into the pre-production stage. Public expectation for new telecommunication services such as the video phone had heightened. Charles joined the long-haul waveguide group led by Dr Karbowiak at STL. He was excited to see an actual circular waveguide. He was assigned to look for new transmission methods for microwave and optical transmission. He used both ray optics and wave theory to gain a better understanding of waveguide problems then a novel idea. Later, his boss encouraged him to pursue a doctorate while working at STL. So Charles registered at University College London and completed the dissertation Quasi-Optical Waveguides in two years. The invention of the laser in 1959 gave the telecom community a great dose of optimism that optical communication could be just around the corner. The coherent light was to be the new information carrier with capacity a hundred thousand times higher than point-to-point microwaves based on the simple comparison of frequencies: 300 terahertz for light versus 3 gigahertz for microwaves. The race between circular microwave waveguides and optical communication was on, with the odds heavily in favour of the former. In 1960, optical lasers were in their infancy, demonstrated at only a few research laboratories, and performing much below the needed specs. Optical systems seemed a non-starter. But Charles still thought the laser had potential. He said to himself: How can we dismiss the laser so readily? Optical communication is too good to be left on the theoretical shelf. He asked himself the obvious questions: 1. Is the ruby laser a suitable source for optical communication? 2. What material has sufficiently high transparency at such wavelengths? At that time only two groups in the world were starting to look at the transmission aspect of optical communication, while several other groups were working on solid state and semiconductor lasers. Lasers emit coherent radiation at optical frequencies, but using such radiation for communication appeared to be very difficult, if not impossible. For optical communication to fulfill its promises, many serious problems remained to be solved. 3. The key discovery In 1963 Charles was already involved in free space propagation experiments: the rapid progress of semiconductor and laser technology had opened up a broader scope to explore optical communication realistically. With a helium-neon laser beam directed to a spot some distance away, the STL team quickly discovered that distant laser light flickered. The beam danced around several beam diameters because of atmospheric fluctuations. The team also tried to repeat experiments done by other research laboratories around the world. For example, they set up con-focal lens experiments similar to those at Bell Labs: a series of convex lenses were lined up at intervals equal to the focal length. But even at the dead of night when the air was still and even with refocusing every 100 meters, the beam refused to stay within the lens aperture. Bell Labs experiments using gas lenses were abandoned due to the difficulty of providing satisfactory insulation while maintaining the profiles of the gas lenses. These experiments were struggles in desperation, to control light travelling over long distances. At STL the thinking shifted towards dielectric waveguides. Dielectric means a non-conductor of electricity; a dielectric waveguide is a waveguide consisting of a dielectric cylinder surrounded by air. Dr Karbowiak suggested Charles and three others to work on his idea of a thin film waveguide. But thin film waveguides failed: the confinement was not strong enough and light would escape as it negotiates a bend. When Dr Karbowiak decided to emigrate to Australia, Charles took over as the project leader and he then recommended that the team should investigate the loss mechanism of dielectric materials for optical fibers. A small group worked on methods for measuring material loss of low-loss transparent materials. George Hockham joined him to work on the characteristics of dielectric waveguides. With his interest in waveguide theory, he focused on the tolerance requirements for an optical fiber waveguide; in particular, the dimensional tolerance and joint losses. They proceeded to systematically study the physical and waveguide requirements on glass fibers. In addition, Charles was also pushing his colleagues in the laser group to work towards a semiconductor laser in the near infrared, with emission characteristics matching the diameter of a single-mode fiber. Single mode fiber is optical fiber that is designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier. The laser had to be made durable, and to work at room temperatures without liquid nitrogen cooling. So there were many obstacles. But in the early 1960s, esoteric research was tolerated so long as it was not too costly. Over the next two years, the team worked towards the goals. They were all novices in the physics and chemistry of materials and in tackling new electromagnetic wave problems. But they made very credible progress in considered steps. They searched the literature, talked to experts, and collected material samples from various glass and polymer companies. They also worked on the theories, and developed measurement techniques to carry out a host of experiments. They developed an instrument to measure the spectral loss of very low-loss material, as well as one for scaled simulation experiments to measure fiber loss due to mechanical imperfections. Charles zeroed in on glass as a possible transparent material. Glass is made from silica sand from centuries past that is plentiful and cheap. The optical loss of transparent material is due to three mechanisms: (a) intrinsic absorption, (b)extrinsic absorption, and (c) Rayleigh scattering. The intrinsic loss is caused by the infrared absorption of the material structure itself, which determines the wavelength of the transparency regions. The extrinsic loss is due to impurity ions left in the material and the Rayleigh loss is due to the scattering of photons by the structural non-uniformity of the material. For most practical applications such as windows, the transparency of glass was entirely adequate, and no one had studied absorption down to such levels. After talking with many people, Charles eventually formed the following conclusions. 1. Impurities, particularly transition elements such as iron, copper, and manganese, have to be reduced to parts per million or even parts per billion. However, can impurity concentrations be reduced to such low levels? 2. High temperature glasses are frozen rapidly and therefore are more homogeneous, leading to a lower scattering loss. The ongoing microwave simulation experiments were also completed. The characteristics of the dielectric waveguide were fully defined in terms of its modes, its dimensional tolerance both for end-to-end mismatch and for its diameter fluctuation along the fiber lengths. Both the theory and the simulated experiments supported the approach. They wrote the paper entitled, Dielectric-Fibre Surface Waveguides for Optical Frequencies and submitted it to the Proceedings of Institute of Electrical Engineers. After the usual review and revision, it appeared in July 1966 the date now regarded as the birthday of optical fiber communication. 4. The paper The paper started with a brief discussion of the mode properties in a fiber of circular cross section. The paper then quickly zeroed in on the material aspects, which were recognized to be the major stumbling block. At the time, the most transparent glass had a loss of 200 dB/km, which would limit transmission to about a few meters this is very obvious to anyone who has ever peered through a thick piece of glass. Nothing can be seen. But the paper pointed out that the intrinsic loss due to scattering could be as low as 1 dB/km,which would have allowed propagation over practical distances. The culprit is the impurities: mainly ferrous and ferric ions at these wavelengths. Quoting from the paper: It is foreseeable that glasses with a bulk loss of about 20 dB/km at around 0.6 micron will be obtained, as the iron-impurity concentration may be reduced to 1 part per million. In layman terms, if one has a sufficiently clean type of glass, one should be able to see through a slab as thick as several hundred meters. That key insight opened up the field of optical communications. The paper considered many other issues: ? The loss can be reduced if the mode is chosen so that most of the energy is actually outside the fiber. ? The fiber should be surrounded by a cladding of lower index (which became the standard technology). ? The loss of energy due to bends in the fiber is negligible for bends larger than 1 mm. ? The losses due to non-uniform cross sections were estimated. ? The properties of a single-mode fiber (now a key technology especially for long distance and high data rate transmission) were analyzed. It was explained how dispersion limits bandwidth; an example was worked out for a 10 km route a very bold scenario in 1966. It may be appropriate to quote from the Conclusion of this paper: The realization of a successful fiber waveguide depends, at present, on the availability of suitable low-loss dielectric material. The crucial material problem appears to be one which is difficult but not impossible to solve. Certainly, the required loss figure of around 20 dB/km is much higher than the lower limit of loss figure imposed by fundamental mechanisms. Basically all of the predictions pointed accurately to the paths of developments, and we now have 1/100 of the loss and 10,000 times the bandwidth then forecast the evolutionary proposal in the 1966 paper was in hindsight too conservative. 5. Convincing the world The substance of the paper was presented by Dr Kao at an IEE meeting in February 1966. Most of the world did not take notice except for the British Post Office (BPO) and the UK Ministry of Defense, who immediately launched major research programs. By the end of 1966, three groups in the UK were studying the various issues involved: Kao himself at STL; Roberts at BPO; Gambling at Southampton in collaboration with Williams at the Ministry of Defense Laboratory. In the next few years, Dr Kao traveled the globe to push his idea: to Japan, where enduring friendships were made dating from those early days; to research labs in Germany, in the Netherlands and elsewhere to spread his news. He said that until more and more jumped on the bandwagon, the use of glass fibers would not take off. He had tremendous conviction in the face of widespread skepticism. The global telephony industry is huge, too large to be changed by a single person or even a single country, but he was persistent and his enthusiasm was contagious, and slowly he converted others to be believers. The experts at first proclaimed that the materials were the most severe of the intrinsic insurmountable problems. Gambling wrote that British Telecom had been somewhat scathingabout the proposal earlier, and Bell Labs, who could easily have led the field, simply failed to take notice until the proven technology was pointed out to them. Dr Kao visited many glass manufacturers to persuade them to produce the clear glass required. He got a response from Corning, where Maurer led the first group that later produced the glass rods and developed the techniques to make the glass fibers to the required specifications. Meanwhile, Dr Kao continued to pour energy into proving the feasibility of glass fibers as the medium for long-haul optical transmission. They faced a number of formidable challenges. The first was the measurement techniques for low-loss samples that were obtainable only in lengths of around 20 cm. The problem of assuring surface perfection was also ormidable. Another problem is end surface reflection loss, caused by the polishing process. They faced a measurement impasse that demanded the detection of a loss difference between two samples of less than 0.1%, when the total loss of the entire 20 cm sample is only 0.1%. An inexact measurement would be meaningless. In 1968 and 1969, Dr Kao and his colleagues Davies, Jones and Wright at STL published a series of papers on the attenuation measurements of glass that addressed the above problems. At that time, the measuring instruments called spectrophotometers had a rather limited sensitivity in the range of 43 dB/km. The measurement was very difficult: even a minute contamination could have caused a loss comparable to the attenuation itself, while surface effects could easily be ten times worse. Dr Kao and the team assembled a homemade single-beam spectrophotometer that achieved a sensitivity of 21.7 dB/km. Later improvements with a double-beam spectrophotometer yielded a sensitivity down to 4.3 dB/km. The reflection effect was measured with a homemade ellipsometer. To make it, they used fused quartz samples made by plasma deposition, in which the high temperature evaporated the impurity ions. With the sensitive instrument, the attenuation of a number of glass samples was measured and, eureka, the Infrasil sample from Schott Glass showed an attenuation as low as 5 dB/km at a window around 0.85 micron at last proving that the removal of impurity would lower the absorption loss to useful levels. This was really exciting because the low-loss region is right at the gallium-arsenide laser emission band. The measurements clearly pointed the way to optical communication compact gallium-arsenide semiconductor lasers as the source, low-cost cladded glass fibers as the transmission medium, and silicon or germanium semiconductors for detection. The dream no longer seemed remote. These measurements apparently turned the sentiments of the research community around. The race to develop the first low-loss glass fiber waveguide was on. In 1967, at Corning, Maurers chemist colleague Schultz helped to purify the glass. In 1968, his colleagues Keck and Zimar helped to draw the fibers. By 1970, Corning had produced a fiber waveguide with a loss of 17 dB/km at 0.633 micron using a titanium-diffused core with silica cladding, using the Outside Vapor Deposition (OVD) method. Two years later, they reduced the loss to 4 dB/km for a multimode fiber by replacing the titanium-doped core with a germanium-doped core. Bell Labs finally got on the bandwagon in 1969 and created a programme in optical fiber research after having been skeptical for years. Their work on hollow light pipes was finally stopped in 1972. Their millimeter wave research programme was wound down and eventually abandoned in 1975. It was during this time of constant flying out to other places that this cartoon joke hit home:Children, the man you see at the breakfast table today is your father! We saw him for a few days and off he went again. Sometimes he flew off for the day for meetings at ITT Corp headquarters in New York. I would forget he had not left to go to the office and would phone his secretary to remind Charles to pick up milk or something on his way home. His secretary was very amused:Mrs Kao, dont you know your husband is in New York today! 6. Impact on the world Since the deployment of the first-generation, 45-megabit-per-second fiber-optic communication system in 1976, the transmission capacity in a single fiber has rapidly increased a million fold to tens of terabits per second. Data can be carried over millions of km of fibers without going through repeaters, thanks to the invention of the optical fiber amplifier and wavelength division multiplexing. So that is how the industry grew and grew. The world has been totally transformed because of optical fiber communication. The telephone system has been overhauled and international long distance calls have become easily affordable. Brand new mega-industries in fiber optics including cable manufacturing and equipment, optical devices, network system and equipment have been created. Hundreds of millions of kilometers of glass fiber cables have been laid, in the ground and in the ocean, creating an intricate web of connectivity that is the foundation of the world-wide web. The Internet is now more pervasive than the telephone used to be. We browse, we skype, we blog, we go onto you-tube, we shop, we socialize on-line. The information revolution that started in the 1990s could not have happened without optical fibers. Over the last few years fibers are being laid all the way to our homes. All-optical networks that are environmentally green are contemplated. The revolution in optical fiber communication has not ended it might still just be at the beginning. 7. Conclusion The world-wide communication network based on optical fibers has truly shrunk the world and brought human beings closer together. I hardly need to cite technical figures to drive this point home. The news of the Nobel Prize reached us in the middle of the night at 3 am in California, through a telephone call from Stockholm (then in their morning) no doubt carried on optical fibers; congratulations came literally minutes later from friends in Asia (for whom it was evening), again through messages carried on optical fibers. Too much information is not always a good thing: we had to take the phone off the hook that night in order to get some sleep! Optical communication is by now not just a technical advance, but has also caused major changes in society. The next generation will learn and grow up differently; people will relate to one another in different ways. Manufacturing of all the bits and pieces of a single product can now take place over a dozen locations around the world, providing huge opportunities for people especially in developing countries. The wide accessibility of information has obviously led to more equality and wider participation in public affairs. Many words, indeed many books have been written about the information society, and I do not wish to add to them here except to say that it is beyond the dreams of the first serious concept of optical communication in 1966, when even 1 GHz was only a hope. In conclusion, Charles and I want to thank the Professors at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, namely: Professor Young, Professor Wong, Professor Cheung and Professor Chen for their support in compiling this lecture for us. Charles would like to thank ITT Corp where he developed his career for 30 years and all those who climbed on to the bandwagon with him in the early days, as without the legions of believers the industry would not have evolved as it did. Charles Kao planted the seed; Bob Maurer watered it and John MacChesney grew its roots.
清早，打开邮箱。友人提醒我注意昨天高锟、黄美芸夫妇的公开信。 在这个全世界都在为他们欢呼的时候，两位老者出奇地冷静。甚至还不忘提醒人们，正是光纤的使用，也加速了互联网上良莠不齐讯息的传递。 他们比我们看得深远得多。 还有，对于国籍问题，他们的回答几乎和爱因斯坦的回答的一样。 天地有大美而不言，请君聆音希声处 ! __________ 原信发表于香港中文大学网站： http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/charleskao/letter-c.html 高錕教授伉儷希望透過以下公開信向所有朋友, 中大同人, 傳媒朋友及所有港人致意 各位朋友： 十月六日，瑞典皇家科學院宣布 Charles 成為本年度諾貝爾物理學獎得主之一。消息公布後，海內外許多朋友經互聯網、傳真、電郵傳來賀電，各個媒體的訪問邀約接踵而至，我倆不勝欣感。 諾貝爾獎是國際獎項，旨在表揚造福人類的成就和貢獻。 目前華裔得諾貝爾獎者尚為少數，今增添一員，全球華人的光榮喜悅，自是不言可喻。 Charles 生於上海，一九六六年在英國哈洛的標準通訊實驗室從事研究，後來赴美於國際電話電報公司研發纖維光學逾二十載，使之成為商用技術，一九八七年回到香港，在香港中文大學把所知所學傳授給下一代，同時致力向工商界推廣科技應用。 Charles 一生周遊列國，可謂不折不扣的世界人！ 各界友好對 Charles 的關心，我們深表感謝。可惜阿茲海默症目前仍是不治之症，聞人如列根、戴卓爾夫人，亦不能免。 Charles 平日打網球，做運動，不抽煙，飲食均衡，起居正常，記憶力雖見衰退，仍能自得其樂。 對於昔日的研究成果， Charles 深感自豪；對於不期而得的諾貝爾獎， Charles 深感興奮。 Charles 接受媒體訪問，欣悉新聞界已得到所需的事實資料， 故深盼重返平靜的生活，還請各位媒體朋友見諒。 我倆衷心感謝來自香港的問候和祝賀，並向各方友好致意，包括從前在中大共事的同仁，現正服務於中大的教職員工，所有中大學生和畢業生，還有我倆的深交摯友，尤其是那些不離不棄的網球同好。到了現在，你們應該都知道，高錕是光纖之父。 也正是光纖，使那些真偽莫辨、良莠不齊的資訊得以充斥於互聯網上，不分畛域，無遠弗屆。 高錕、黃美芸同謹啟 二零零九年十月十三日 Professor and Mrs Charles K. Kao wish to express their gratitude to their friends, all staff, students and alumni at CUHK, members of the media, and the people of Hong Kong, by the following Open Letter. Since the announcement on 6 October 2009 that Charles has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, we have received messages from friends from all over the world via the internet, fax, and email. We are overwhelmed by the sea of congratulatory messages from so many people, and the many requests for interviews from the media. A Nobel Laureate of Chinese ethnicity is a rare event and we understand the outpouring of happiness and pride for our people throughout the world wherever they live. The Nobel Prize is an international prize and has been awarded for work done internationally. Charles Kao was born in Shanghai, China, did his primary research in 1966 at Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL) in Harlow, UK, followed through with work in the USA at ITT, over the following 20 years, to develop fiber optics into a commercial product and finally came to CUHK, Hong Kong in 1987 to pass on his knowledge and expertise to a new generation of students and businessmen. Charles really does belong to the world! In this open letter, we would like to thank all who have concern for his health. Unfortunately there is no cure at present for Alzheimer's. Charles shares this problem of coping with Alzheimer with other eminent persons, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, to name a few. Charles keeps fit playing tennis and with other exercises. He does not smoke, he enjoys eating and drinking in healthy moderation and sleeps well too. The memory loss is getting more severe, but he enjoys life. He is eminently proud of his past achievements and excited at becoming a Nobel Laureate an unexpected award. The press and media have interviewed him and he is happy they have found all the facts they need. So he is more than ready to return to a quiet and undisturbed life now, and he asks that the media respect this. Our greetings to everyone in Hong Kong, to staff, faculty and students past and present of CUHK, to all our very good friends and especially to our tennis friends. Thank you for all your good wishes and congratulations. Now you know who is responsible for the fiber optical cables that enable all the excessive information, both true and false, good and bad, that circulate on the internet. Charles and May Wan Kao 13 October 2009
2009年诺贝尔物理学奖揭晓 华人科学家高锟和2美科学家因光传输研究和CCD传感器获奖 高锟 Willard S. Boyle George E. Smith 北京时间10月6日下午5点45分，2009年诺贝尔物理学奖揭晓，美英三科学家获奖。三位科学家为原香港中文大学校长高锟（Charles K. Kao）、美国科学家Willard S. Boyle和George E. Smith。 高锟的获奖理由为在光学通信领域光在光纤中传输方面所取得的开创性成就。两位美国科学家的获奖理由为发明了一种成像半导体电路，即CCD（电荷耦合器件）传感器。 高锟，1933年出生于中国上海，现拥有英国和美国双重国籍。1965年从英国伦敦帝国理工学院获得电机工程博士学位。曾任英国标准电信实验室工程学主任。Willard Sterling Boyle，1924年出生于加拿大Amherst，拥有加拿大和美国国籍。1950年从加拿大麦吉尔大学获得物理学博士学位。George Elwood Smith，1930年出生于美国白原市（White Plains），美国国籍。1959年从芝加哥大学获得物理学博士学位。 今年诺贝尔物理学奖奖金为1000万瑞典克朗，高锟将获得其中一半的奖金，两位美国科学家各分享四分之一的奖金。 今年的诺贝尔物理学奖授予两项伟大的科学成就，它们帮助塑造了今日网络化社会的基础。它们为日常生活创造了许多应用创新，并为科学探索提供了新的工具。 1966年，高锟所做出的一项发现导致了纤维光学的突破。他仔细地计算出如何通过光学玻璃纤维实现远距离光传输。应用纯玻璃纤维，光信号传输可达到100公里，而在1960年代，当时的光纤传输光只能达到20米。高锟的研究热情鼓舞了其他一些研究人员，共同来分享他关于未来纤维光学的见解。仅仅于四年之后，1970年，第一个超纯光纤就被成功制造出来。 现今，由光纤构成的系统滋养着我们的通信社会。这些低损耗的玻璃纤维推动了全球宽带通信，比如因特网。光在这些细玻璃线中流动，携带着几乎所有的四面八方的电话和数据通信。文本、音乐、图像和视频可在瞬间进行全球传输。 如果我们拆开缠绕全球的玻璃纤维，我们将得到一条长十亿公里的细线，这已足够环绕地球25000多次，并且它还在以数千公里/小时的速度在增长。 通信的很大一部分是由数字图像组成的，这就涉及到了今年诺贝尔物理学奖的第二部分。1969年，Willard S. Boyle和George E. Smith发明了首个成功的成像技术，利用的是数字传感器电荷耦合器件（CCD）。CCD技术利用了爱因斯坦因其荣获1921年诺贝尔奖的光电效应。通过这一效应，光可被转变成电信号。设计图像传感器的挑战则在于短时间内在大量像素中聚集并读出信号。 CCD好比数字相机的电子眼。它革新了摄影学，如今光可被电子化捕捉，再也无需胶卷。数字形式推动了图像的处理和传播。在医学领域，CCD技术也得到了很多的应用。 如今在许多研究领域，数字摄影已经成为不可取代的工具。CCD为形象化之前无法可见的事物提供了新的可能。它为我们提供了世界远处和海洋深处极其清楚的图像。 高锟获奖 为全港、全国科研注强心针 作为半个香港人的高锟夺得诺贝尔奖，给本港学术界带来极大鼓舞。不少香港学者及高等教育界人士均表示，高锟得奖除了增强大家对香港科研的信心，也证明从事科研工作，需要有长远的规划和耐心。有学者认为，当前政府及工业界给予科研的支持不足，离高锟期许的先进数码城市(advanced digital city)仍有很长的路要走。 中大校长刘遵义昨向全体中大师生发表公开信，指高锟获奖实至名归，是中大、全港、全国以至所有华人的天大喜讯，所有中大人均深以其辉煌成就为荣。他还赞扬高锟对中大贡献卓越，认为该校成为区内以至国际上教研皆具份量的学府，高锟居功尤伟。 对通讯方式有革命性影响 大学教育资助委员会主席史美伦表示，大家皆受惠于高锟多年来对科研无比的热忱，以及他对本港高等教育的各项贡献。科大工学院院长李德富和港大物理系主任张富春均表示，高锟是电子通讯业的先驱者，其科研成就彻底革新了整个通讯方式，为人类生活带来了革命性的影响。 中大物理学系主任林海青指消息公布后，该系教员和学生互传喜讯，表现激动、雀跃。他指国际上很多顶尖学者虽为华人身份，但多于国外工作和生活，故高锟可谓是首位获得世界级科研荣誉、但同时在中国做贡献的本土华人。林海青认为高锟获奖会为香港发展科研注入强心针，将会鼓励更多的年轻人从事科研工作，为香港社会做出奉献。 距先进数码城市目标尚远 高锟担任中大校长期间，成立了多个研究所及工程、教育两学院。中大工程学院(科研)副院长蒙美玲表示，她在1997年时曾因撰书访问高锟，谈论Made by Hong Kong(香港制造)的话题。当时他认为香港地方虽小，但政府愿意推广高科技、市民喜欢尝试使用新产品，故香港若能保持不断进步的势头，便可成为先进数码城市(advanced digital city)的典范。但她坦言，当前离高锟设想的目标仍很遥远，大家都很清楚，现在投放于技术转移的资源并不多。 蒙美玲表示，香港学界有很多科研成果，期待能与工业界、尤其是珠三角开展密切合作，但希望政府和企业能明白，科研是需要大量投资和耐心，而且并不能保证成功，关键是要保持不断创新的势头。 （摘自网络）
科学家高锟（Charles K. Kao）的论著： CITATION] Dielectric-fibre surface waveguides for optical frequencies KC Kao, GA Hockham - IEE proceedings. Part J. Optoelectronics, 1986 - cat.inist.fr Dielectric-fibre surface waveguides for optical frequencies. KC KAO, GA HOCKHAM IEE proceedings. Part J. Optoelectronics 133:33, 191 ... Cited by 256 - Related articles - BL Direct - All 2 versions 标题: DIELECTRIC-FIBRE SURFACE WAVEGUIDES FOR OPTICAL FREQUENCIES 作者: KAO KC, HOCKHAM GA 来源出版物: PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS-LONDON 卷: 113 期: 7 页: 1151- 出版年: 1966 被引频次: 197 Optical Fiber Systems: Technology, Design, and Application CK Kao - 1983 - csa.com Optical Fiber Systems: Technology, Design, and Application. Charles K Kao 1983. Glass fibers have extensive applications as optical waveguides for communications. This book gives much information ... Cited by 26 - Related articles - All 4 versions Optical fiber technology D Gloge, CK Kao - 1975 - IEEE press Cited by 19 - Related articles - Find in ChinaCat Precision optical fiber connector CK Kao , LG Wolfgang - US Patent 4,047,796, 1977 - Google Patents 4,047,796 FIG. 3 is an expanded end view of the three rods and PRECISION OPTICAL FIBER CONNECTOR center fiber of FIG. 1 showing the angular and radial BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION FIQ 4 g partial e^.^^ of thc opt^ fiber 1. Field of the ... Cited by 17 - Related articles - All 3 versions Method for using on line optic fiber loss monitor JE Goell, GW Bickel, CK Kao , MS Maklad - US Patent 4,081,258, 1978 - Google Patents United States Patent Goell et al. 4,081,258 Mar. 28, 1978 METHOD FOR USING ON LINE OPTIC FIBER LOSS MONITOR Inventors: James E. Goell; Gary W. Bickel; Charles K. Kao ; Mokhtar S. Maklad, all of Roanoke, Va. ... Cited by 10 - Related articles - All 2 versions Optical fiber transmission mixer and method of making same CK Kao , JE Goell - US Patent 4,087,156, 1978 - Google Patents 156 United States Patent M 4,087,156 May 2, 1978 Kao et al. OPTICAL FIBER TRANSMISSION MIXER OF MAKING! Assignee: AND Inventors: Charles K. Kao ; James E. GoeU, both of Roanoke, Va. International Telephone ... Cited by 9 - Related articles - All 2 versions Nonlinear photonics Y Guo, CK Kao , EH Li, KS Chiang - 1999 - Univ. of Michigan Press Cited by 8 - Related articles Optical fibre CK Kao - 1988 - Peter Peregrinus Ltd Cited by 8 - Related articles Water resistant high strength fibers CK Kao , MS Maklad - US Patent 4,183,621, 1980 - Google Patents 1/15/60 OR 183.621 United States Patent Kao et al. 4,183,621 Jan. 15,1980 WATER RESISTANT HIGH STRENGTH FIBERS Inventors: Charles K. Kao ; Mokhtar S. Maklad, both of Roanoke, Va. Assignee: International ... Cited by 6 - Related articles - All 2 versions Technology road maps for Hong Kong: An in-depth study of four technology areas CK Kao , K Young - 1991 - Hong Kong: Chinese University Press Cited by 6 - Related articles
图片取自诺贝尔奖官方网站的面向大众的解读性文章 : The masters of light 第一章 引子 诺贝尔奖委员会为何急忙删掉高锟的国籍信息： C hina and United Kingdom ? 中国政府认定他 不具有中国籍 ，中国科学院认定他是 美国籍！ 但是香港特别行政区政府认定他是 香港人，也就是中国籍！ 有点乱！ 第二章 诺贝尔奖委员会肯定出了点小纰漏 2009年的诺贝尔物理学奖还有多少悬念? 肯定是给Aharonov和Berry了。当我在第一时间伸长脖子观看网上现场直播时，立即发现完了。同时又兴奋起来：一半奖金给了原香港中文大学校长高锟。发言人提到中国香港中文大学，但是没有提到获奖人国籍。我马上到网页上去求证。当时网页没有得奖者的照片，但人名之下就专门有文字 China and United Kingdom 说明获奖人的国籍。但是约莫一个小时后，这条国籍消息就没有了。 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2009/index.html 但是其它奖项的获得者，都有国籍信息：例如化学奖： http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/index.html 诺贝尔奖委员会官方第一时间公布的讯息如下： Charles K. Kao, 1/2 of the prize ， China and United Kingdom Standard Telecommunication Laboratories Harlow, United Kingdom; Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China b. 1933 (in Shanghai, China) for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication 注意到诺贝尔奖官方网站上有一句专门的说明： Titles, data and places given above refer to the time of the award. 完全可以解读成诺贝尔奖不仅给个人，还要计算获奖单位甚至获奖国家。由于高锟院士挂名还在香港中文大学， 香港中文大学就算一个获奖单位。 香港中文大学赚翻了！热烈祝贺！ 如果诺贝尔奖委员会认定说中国也是一个获奖国家，对中国科技界来说恐怕更多的是一种难堪。 第三章 哪些国家和地区认领了这个诺贝尔物理学奖 美国 首当其中 ： 3 American Citizens Share Physics Nobel http://news.aol.com/article/charles-k-kao-willard-s-boyle-and-george/704232 香港 紧紧跟上 ：香港特区行政长官行曾荫权表示： 诺贝尔物理学奖是科学界的最高荣誉，我和香港市民衷心祝贺高锟教授获此殊荣。高教授不但是一位杰出的科学家，亦是一位谦谦君子和有承担的教育家。 香港能够有一位如此出类拔萃人物，是我们的无比骄傲。 英国 当仁不让 ：英国政府官员立即表示祝贺，并高度赞扬高锟为世界所作贡献。英国政府当天晚些时候发布的新闻公报说，负责科学和创新事务的国务大臣德雷森勋爵非常高兴地祝贺高锟获得这一巨大荣誉。他说：这不仅对高锟来说是骄傲的一天， 对整个国家来说都是骄傲的一天。 中国政府 不敢认领、也不敢不认领这个奖：后来的报道一致都说 华人 、 科学院外籍院士 ----而不说美籍或英籍华人---- 高锟 与人分获物理学奖。和报道同是诺贝尔物理学奖得主李、杨时斩钉截铁说他们是美籍华人相比，分寸拿捏还是很到位啊！ 第四章 香港和内地的《国籍法》有点不同 《中华人民共和国国籍法》 ： 高锟不具有中国国籍。 根据《中华人民共和国国籍法》一旦具有他国国籍，视为自动放弃中国国籍。由于 高錕具有美国和英国国籍，不能视为中国公民。 香港方面的解釋 ： 高錕同時具有中、英和美國國籍。 根據全國人民代表大會常務委員會關於《中華人民共和國國籍法》在香港特別行政區實施的幾個問題的解釋， 對其居民中的中國公民持有外國護照者，視作其旅行證件，不過不得因持有上述證件而享有外國領事保護的權利。 由於高錕有香港特區即永久居民身份，如果他現在港澳，中國國籍 有效 ，他不得因持有英美護照而享有外國領事保護的權利。 他現在美國，不能確定他的中國國籍有效，但是他的香港永久居民身份有效。 從法律上，高錕在國外可以不是中國國籍，当然也可以是；一旦進入中國香港，則只能是中國國籍。 香港特区能认领这个奖，中国政府不敢认领但也不能拒绝港府认领。 第五章 余波 1 ， 真正的一国两制：香港说他是中国籍，但是内地不可以说是。 2 ，诺贝尔奖委员会的主席一定有点头皮发麻：这是这么回事 ? 到底能不能说他是中国人 ? 估计最后会打出三个国籍： US 、 UK 和 China. 3 ，如果诺贝尔奖委员会最终认定 高锟先生的 中国国籍，我们只好快乐并难堪着。 附件 中国科学院官方网站 院士信息 高锟条： http://sourcedb.cas.cn/sourcedb_ad_cas/zw2/ysxx/wjysmd/200906/t20090624_1808902.html 高锟 ; （ Charles; K.Kao) ，光纤通讯、电机工程专家。 美国国籍。 生于中国上海，原籍上海金山。 1957 年、 1965 年先后获英国伦敦大学电机工程学学士、博士学位。 1970 年迄今任香港中文大学教授， 1987 － 1996 年任该校校长。美国国家工程院院士、英国皇家工程科学院院士、英国皇家艺术学会会员和瑞典皇家工程科学院外籍院士，台湾 中央研究院 院士。 br 高锟 教授 1966 年在《光频率介质纤维表面波导》论文中开创性地提出光导纤维在通讯上应用的基本原理，描述了长程及高信息量光通讯所需绝缘性纤维的结构和材料特性。同时开发了实现光通讯所需的辅助性子系统。在单模纤维的构造、纤维的强度和耐久性、纤维连接器和耦合器以及扩散均衡特性等多个领域都作了大量的研究，而这些研究成果都是使信号在无放大的条件下，以每秒亿兆位元传送至距离以万米为单位的成功关键。 1996 年当选为中国科学院外籍院士。
http://www.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2009/10/223885.shtm 2009年诺贝尔物理学奖揭晓 原香港中文大学校长高锟和两位美国科学家获奖 北京时间10月6日下午5点45分，2009年诺贝尔物理学奖揭晓，英美三科学家获奖。三位科学家为原香港中文大学校长高锟（Charles K. Kao）、美国科学家Willard S. Boyle和George E. Smith。 高锟的获奖理由为在光学通信领域光在光纤中传输方面所取得的开创性成就。两位美国科学家的获奖理由为发明了一种成像半导体电路，即CCD传感器。 高锟，1933年出生于中国上海，现拥有英国和美国双重国籍。1965年从英国伦敦帝国理工学院获得电机工程博士学位。现为英国标准电信实验室工程学主任。 今年诺贝尔物理学奖奖金为1000万瑞典克朗，高锟将获得其中一半的奖金，两位美国科学家各分享四分之一的奖金。 更多阅读 诺贝尔奖网站官方公告（英文） 2008年诺贝尔物理学奖揭晓 2009年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖揭晓 相关专题： 2009年诺贝尔奖揭晓 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2009/index.html The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009 for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit the CCD sensor Photo: Richard Epworth Charles K. Kao Willard S. Boyle George E. Smith 1/2 of the prize 1/4 of the prize 1/4 of the prize China and United Kingdom USA USA Standard Telecommunication Laboratories Harlow, United Kingdom; Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong, China Bell Laboratories Murray Hill, NJ, USA Bell Laboratories Murray Hill, NJ, USA b. 1933 (in Shanghai, China) b. 1924 (in Amherst, NS, Canada) b. 1930 Titles, data and places given above refer to the time of the award. Printer Friendly Comments Questions Tell a Friend The 2009 Prize in: Physics Medicine Prev. year The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009 Prize Announcement Press Release Scientific Background Information for the Public Charles K. Kao Nobel Lecture Other Resources Willard S. Boyle Nobel Lecture Photo Gallery Other Resources George E. Smith Nobel Lecture Photo Gallery Other Resources var flashvars = {}; flashvars.CalendarDate = "2009-10-06"; flashvars.poll_id = "9"; var params = {}; params.quality = "best"; params.wmode = "opaque"; var attributes = {}; swfobject.embedSWF("/images/poll/shortcut_big_simple_poll.swf?rand=617", "banner_zone617", "160", "250", "8.0.24.0", false, flashvars, params, attributes); All Physics Nobel Laureates Ask this year's Nobel Laureates 2009 Nobel Prizes - LIVE broadcast http://www.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2009/10/223886.shtm 高锟获得2009年诺贝尔物理学奖的华裔科学家 瑞典皇家科学院10月6日宣布，将2009年诺贝尔物理学奖授予英国华裔科学家高锟以及两位美国科学家。高锟获奖，是因为他在有关光在纤维中的传输以用于光学通信方面做出了突破性成就。 高锟被誉为光纤之父。早在1966年，高锟就在一篇论文中首次提出用玻璃纤维作为光波导用于通讯的理论。简单地说，就是提出以玻璃制造比头发丝更细的光纤，取代铜导线作为长距离的通讯线路。这个理论引起了世界通信技术的一次革命。随着第一个光纤系统于1981年成功问世，高锟光纤之父美誉传遍世界。 高锟还开发了实现光纤通讯所需的辅助性子系统。他在单模纤维的构造、纤维的强度和耐久性、纤维连接器和耦合器以及扩散均衡特性等多个领域都作了大量的研究，而这些研究成果都是使信号在无放大的条件下，以每秒亿兆位元传送至距离以万米为单位的成功关键。 高锟1933年在上海出生。1949年随家前往香港。1954年赴英国伦敦大学攻读电机工程，并于1957年及1965年获学士和哲学博士学位。从1957年开始，高锟即从事光导纤维在通讯领域运用的研究。1987年10月，高锟从英国回到香港，并出任香港中文大学第三任校长。从1987年到1996年任职期间，他为中文大学罗致了大批人才，使中大的学术结构和知识结构更加合理。在与内地科技界的交流合作中，他主张一步一步把双方的联系实际化。高锟于1996年当选为中国科学院外籍院士。 由于他的杰出贡献，1996年，中国科学院紫金山天文台将一颗于1981年12月3日发现的国际编号为3463的小行星命名为高锟星。 http://news.163.com/09/1007/00/5KVVICC2000120GU.html 华人科学家高锟等3人 获得诺贝尔物理学奖 新华网斯德哥尔摩10月6日电 得益于光纤通信和CCD图像传感器的应用,诺贝尔奖揭晓的消息和情景如今能瞬间传遍全球。分别研究出这两项成果的华裔科学家高锟和两名美国科学家威拉德博伊尔、乔治史密斯,于6日荣获2009年诺贝尔物理学奖。 瑞典皇家科学院常任秘书贡诺厄奎斯特6日在揭晓奖项的新闻发布会上说,高锟因在有关光在纤维中的传输以用于光学通信方面取得了突破性成就,获得今年物理学奖一半的奖金,共500万瑞典克朗(约合70万美元);博伊尔和史密斯发明了半导体成像器件电荷耦合器件(CCD)图像传感器,两人分享今年物理学奖的另一半奖金。 高锟光纤之父 高锟是继去年钱永健获得诺贝尔化学奖之后,又一位获得诺贝尔奖的华裔科学家。高锟1933年在上海出生,1954年赴英国攻读电机工程,先后获得学士和博士学位。1987年,高锟出任香港中文大学第三任校长,1996年卸任。在与内地科技界的交流合作中,高锟主张一步一步把双方的联系实际化。他于1996年当选为中国科学院外籍院士。 发布会上,诺贝尔物理学奖评选委员会主席约瑟夫努德格伦用一根光纤电缆形象地解释了高锟的重要成就:早在1966年,高锟就取得了光纤物理学上的突破性成果,他计算出如何使光在光导纤维中进行远距离传输,这项成果最终促使光纤通信系统问世,而正是光纤通信为当今互联网的发展铺平了道路。 我对于获颁诺贝尔物理学奖深感荣幸,高锟在得知获奖后说。香港特区行政长官 曾荫权 表示,诺贝尔物理学奖是科学界的最高荣誉,他和香港市民衷心祝贺高锟教授获此殊荣。高锟教授不但是一位杰出的科学家,也是一位谦谦君子和有承担的教育家。 博伊尔、史密斯让数码相机风靡全球 博伊尔1924年出生于加拿大阿默斯特,史密斯1930年出生于美国纽约,两人发明CCD图像传感器时均供职于美国贝尔实验室。诺贝尔物理学奖评选委员会评委英厄马尔伦德斯特勒默在发布会上手持一部数码照相机深入浅出地描述了另两位科学家的成就。他说,博伊尔和史密斯1969年共同发明了CCD图像传感器。这个传感器好似数码照相机的电子眼,通过用电子捕获光线来替代以往的胶片成像,摄影技术由此得到彻底革新。此外,这一发明也推动了医学和天文学的发展,在疾病诊断、人体透视及显微外科等领域都有着广泛用途。 博伊尔在接到获奖通知电话后,几乎不敢相信这一喜讯,这是真的吗?在他看来,他们的成就意义重大,正是因为我们的成果,小型照相机才风靡全球。当火星探测器在火星上着陆的时候,它也带了一个小相机没有我们的发明,那是不可能的。而睡梦中的史密斯错过了第一个通知电话,直到第二个电话才完全醒来,哦,我的天啊!这真是太令人吃惊了! 物理学奖是今年诺贝尔奖揭晓的第二个奖项。5日揭晓的诺贝尔生理学或医学奖授予了三名美国科学家,以表彰他们发现端粒和端粒酶是如何保护染色体的。诺贝尔化学奖以及文学奖、和平奖和经济学奖将于7日至12日陆续揭晓。 var flashvars = {}; flashvars.CalendarDate = "2009-10-06"; var params = {}; params.quality = "best"; params.wmode = "opaque"; var attributes = {}; swfobject.embedSWF("/images/shortcuts/shortcut_fert.swf?rand=200", "banner_zone200", "160", "250", "8.0.24.0", false, flashvars, params, attributes); var flashvars = {}; flashvars.CalendarDate = "2009-10-06"; var params = {}; params.quality = "best"; params.wmode = "opaque"; var attributes = {}; swfobject.embedSWF("/images/shortcuts/shortcut_bigblue_followus.swf?rand=157", "banner_zone157", "160", "250", "8.0.24.0", false, flashvars, params, attributes);
标签: 高锟
